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Meanwhile, the Government has generated an extra £900million of tax revenue per year.

A couple with no children and an income after tax and benefits of less than £237 a week are classed as living in poverty.

The poverty rate of women aged 60-62 has risen from 14.8 per cent to 21.2 per cent, according to the IFS report.

The state pension age is being raised for women and men as rising life expectancy has made it increasingly unaffordable.

But Jonathan Cribb, a senior research economist at the IFS and one of the report authors, said: ‘The tax and benefit system is much more generous to those above the state pension age than those below it. While increasing the state pension age is a coherent response to the public finance challenge posed by rising longevity, it does place a further pressure on household budgets.

Affected households are receiving an average of £74 a week less in pensions and other benefits, while the Government is saving £4.2billion a year

‘The increased state pension age is boosting employment and therefore earnings of affected women, but this is only partially offsetting reduced incomes from state pensions and other benefits.’

The report from the IFS comes amid warnings that more than seven million people in their 30s and 40s will lose out by £10,000 each under plans to increase the state pension age earlier than planned.

People born between 1970 and 1978 will have to wait until they are 68, an extra year, before receiving payments, Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke announced last month.

Recent analysis by the Commons Library found the £74billion that the move will save works out as £9,800 per person on average across the 7.6million hit by the change.

Under current plans, the state pension age for both sexes will be 65 by the end of 2018, rising to 66 in 2020 and 67 in 2028.